This story was produced by El Tímpano, a civic media organization serving and covering the Bay Area’s Latino and Mayan immigrant communities. The original version of the story can be found here.
I wasn’t used to hearing anything about my Mam culture at school. Most classes focused on U.S. history, or maybe Mexican history, but never Mam. My only knowledge of my culture came from my parents and my family, tales of their lives in Guatemala and what they endured to get us to where we are today. I was one of the few Mam speakers at Skyline High School in Oakland, where I graduated last year. It wasn’t until our history teacher, Javier Armas, took notice of our tight-knit Mam community and the rich culture embedded in us, and began teaching our class about the Mam people and about Guatemala. He noticed my keen interest, and brought the idea to me and my classmate Miguel Ortiz, another Mam student, of compiling our Mam history into a book, which we later called Mam History: Oakland Notes on the History of the Mayan-Mam Language.
Truthfully, Miguel and I were skeptical at first. We had no idea what would entail creating a book, or where to even start. It felt like a huge load to lift on top of school work and life. But Mr. Armas encouraged us to participate, noting how important it was to him to have young Mam students have a voice in the book, to be able to tell the tales of our ancestors and our language. Being a Mam speaker means being a trilingual speaker. It’s not as simple as being able to speak Mam and English, but also Spanish to be able to communicate with local resources and our local Latino community. Being able to speak Mam means I can connect with elders in our community who might feel isolated or misunderstood. It’s also beautiful to be able to share your language with others, to see people’s faces light up when they hear something familiar or new.
Developing and putting together this book was a long and detailed process. It took months of interviews, research, and late nights at the library. My favorite part of the process was being able to connect with the elders in our Mam community. I feel so grateful to live in a place like Oakland, where the Mam community is so strong and caring. My favorite part of making the book was the interviews. I talked to family and friends, people still living in Guatemala, Mam speakers, people who really knew the culture. Hearing their voices reminded me why we started this project in the first place. Everyone has their own version of history, their own truths, but together, they form a bigger picture. That’s what we wanted to show…